Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
|
See also:RICHARD See also:CRASHAW (1613-165o)
, See also:English poet, styled " the divine," was See also:born in See also:London about 1613
.
He was the son of a strongly See also:anti-papistical divine, Dr See also: This same year Cowley found him in See also:great destitution at See also:Paris, and induced See also:Queen Henrietta Maria to extend towards him what See also:influence she still possessed . At her introduction he proceeded to See also:Italy, where he became attendant to See also:Cardinal Palotta at See also:Rome . In 1648 he published two Latin hymns at Paris . He remained until 1649 in the service of the cardinal, to whom he had a great See also:personal See also:attachment; but his See also:retinue contained persons whose violent and licentious behaviour was a source of ceaseless vexation to the sensitive English mystic . At last his denunciation of their excesses became so public that the animosity of those persons was excited against him, and in See also:order to See also:shield him from their revenge he was sent by the cardinal in 165o to Loretto, where he was made a See also:canon of the See also:Holy House . In less than three See also:weeks, however, he sickened of See also:fever, and died on the 25th of See also:August, not without See also:grave suspicion of having been poisoned . He was buried in the See also:Lady See also:chapel at Loretto . A collection of his religious poems, entitled Carmen Deo nostro, was brought out in Paris in 1652, dedicated at the dead poet's See also:desire to the faithful friend of his sufferings, the countess of See also:Denbigh . The book is illustrated by thirteen engravings after Crashaw's own designs . Crashaw excelled in all manner of graceful accomplishments; besides being an excellent Latinist and Hellenist, he had an intimate knowledge of See also:Italian and See also:Spanish; and his skill in See also:music, See also:painting and See also:engraving was no less admired in his lifetime than his skill in poetry . Cowley embalmed his memory in an See also:elegy that ranks among the very finest in our See also:language, in which he, a See also:Protestant, well expressed the feeling left on the minds of contemporaries by the See also:character of the See also:young Catholic poet: "His faith, perhaps, in some See also:nice tenets might Be wrong; his See also:life, I'm sure, was in the right: And I, myself, a Catholic will be, So far at least, dear See also:saint, to pray to thee ! The poetry of Crashaw will be best appreciated by those who can with most success See also:free themselves from thebondage of atraditional sense of the dignity of language . The See also:custom of his See also:age permitted the use of images and phrases which we now justly condemn as incongruous and unseemly, and the fervent See also:fancy of Crashaw carried this See also:licence to excess . At the same time his See also:verse is studded with fiery beauties and sudden felicities of language, unsurpassed by any lyrist between his own time and See also:Shelley's . There is no religious poetry in English so full at once of See also:gross and awkward images and imaginative touches of the most ethereal beauty . The See also:temper of his See also:intellect seems to have been delicate and weak, fiery and uncertain; he has a morbid, almost hysterical, See also:passion about him, even when his ardour is most exquisitely expressed, and his adoring addresses to the See also:saints have an effeminate falsetto that makes their See also:ecstasy almost repulsive . The faults and beauties of his very See also:peculiar See also:style can be studied nowhere to more See also:advantage than in the Hymn to Saint Teresa . Among the secular poems of Crashaw the best are Music's See also:Duel, which deals with that strife between the musician and the See also:nightingale which has inspired so many poets, and Wishes to his supposed See also:Mistress . In his latest sacred poems, included in the Carmen Deo nostro, sudden and eminent beauties are not wanting, but the See also:mysticism has become more pronounced, and the ecclesiastical mannerism more harsh and repellent . The themes of Crashaw's verses are as distinct as possible from those of Shelley's, but it may, on the whole, be said that at his best moments he reminds the reader more closely of the author of Epipsychidion than of any earlier or later poet . Crashaw's See also:works were first collected, in one volume, in 1858 by W . B . Turnbull . In 1872 an edition, in 2 volumes, was printed for private subscription by the Rev . A . B . See also:Grosart . A See also:complete edition was edited (1904) for the Cambridge University See also:Press by Mr A . R . See also:Waller . (E . |
|
|
[back] CRASH |
[next] CRASSULACEAE |
There are no comments yet for this article.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are encouraged.